Tuesday’s collision between a Japan Coast Guard de Havilland Dash 8 positioned on the runway for takeoff and a landing Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 at Tokyo Haneda Airport served as a stark reminder of last year’s spate of ground incursions at airports around the world.
Five of the six Coast Guard personnel in the Dash 8 died in the crash with the A350-900, which had landed at 5:47 p.m. local time following a flight from the Japanese city of Sapporo's New Chitose Airport. Although the Airbus became engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds, all 367 passengers and 12 crewmembers managed to escape the wreckage alive.
A statement from Airbus indicated that the precise circumstances of the crash remain unknown. Airbus delivered the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-powered airliner, registered as JA13XJ and identified as MSN538, on Nov. 10, 2021.
In a statement issued early local time on Wednesday, JAL said that air traffic controllers at Haneda had given its flight crew clearance to land at Haneda before they initiated the approach and landing. The airline also reported that the A350's cabin announcement system had malfunctioned during the evacuation of passengers, prompting cabin crew to use megaphones and their voices to issue instructions.
In line with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Annex 13 recommendations, Airbus said it will provide technical assistance to the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) of France and to the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB), which has taken charge of the investigation. The manufacturer said it will dispatch a team of specialists to Japan to assist the authorities. The BEA said it will send a team of four investigators and five technical personnel.
Aviation authorities worldwide last year began examining possible common threads between the elevated number of ground incursions. In the U.S., the FAA issued a Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO) in March after six “serious” runway near-collisions occurred during the first three months of 2023. Since then, the agency established a safety review team focusing on runway safety efforts; held a runway safety summit with aviation industry stakeholders; re-examined data for similar serious incursions to identify trends; and awarded more than $100 million in grants to 12 airports to reduce incursions.
This story was updated early on January 3 to include information released by Japan Airlines about the accident.